The new head of the U.N.'s migration agency said Monday that the private sector is “desperate” for their countries to take in migrants to mop up labor shortages, especially in the West — endeavoring to steer a narrative away from reticence and suspicion about migrants in many parts of the world.
Amy Pope, the first woman to head the International Organization for Migration, sought to play up the economic benefits of migration for rich nations with aging populations and declining workforces — in the face of “build-the-wall” rhetoric in the United States to block migrants from Latin America and right-wing movements in Europe that want to keep foreigners out.
”We hear from … the private sector globally, but especially in Europe and in North America, that they are desperate for migration in order to meet their own labor market needs and in order to continue to fuel innovation within their own companies,” Pope, who is American, told reporters.
She said the evidence was “fairly overwhelming” that migration benefits economies by filling jobs, powering innovation or “fueling the renovation or revitalization of aging communities.”
they are desperate for migration in order to meet their own labor market needs
Once again, it’s not a labor shortage, it’s a wahe shortage.
There’s plenty of people who would take a job if it paid adequately and if the conditions weren’t as abusive.
There are ten people.
There are eleven jobs.
There is a labor shortage.
Companies have to raise wages, and industries that aren’t productive in terms of their use of human capital are driven out of the market (aka: why it’s so common to use illegal immigrants for farming jobs in the southeast).
As a result of higher wages, investing in human productivity becomes more profitable and someone finds out how to automate one of the jobs.
There are eight jobs.
There are ten people.
This cycle is why Western productivity has plummeted. We started trade with china. Why invest in productivity when you can vacuum up a bunch of farmers and just have 10 more cheap workers doing the job?
Those times are gone now.
It’s all connected, and at it’s core is the fact that COVID shocked the market, created lots of labor demand and also booted lots of boomers. You can’t just fix it by just raising wages. Places will go out of business. We will have to change our way of life.
You already see it. Walmart and the likes aren’t open 24/7. Fast food is getting more and more expensive (it’s just not a sustainable use of human life anymore). These are all good changes, but it’s still all due a labor shortage.
You seem to be ignoring where profits are going - shareholders have, for decades, taken far more than their fair share of things and wages absolutely can go up without driving companies out of business it’s just that one group has to take less and that’s the shareholders. Employers will continue to do anything in their power to keep shareholders happy over employees and that absolutely includes bringing in cheaper, migrant labor. It’s not a labor shortage, it’s a wage shortage and investing in productivity doesn’t reduce jobs, it creates new ones - often that require a different skill set than the one it replaced and that’s one reason we are failing, we aren’t helping people acquire new skills en mass
In some countries it is a labor shortage as not every nation has a supply of people not working who could fill those jobs.
“The difference today is that 30 of the biggest economies have experienced very significant labor shortages — and we are seeing it everywhere,” she said, adding that agriculture, construction, health care and hospitality were among the sectors affected.
“Labor shortages”.
Let’s look for commonalities between those sectors.
Agriculture: long hours, back-breaking labor, little upward mobility, dangerous, long-term health issues, often terrible management
Construction: long hours, back-breaking labor, little upward mobility, dangerous, long-term health issues, often terrible management
Health-care: long hours, back-breaking labor, little upward mobility, dangerous, potential long-term health issues, PTSD, often terrible management, difficult patents (who are anything but patient)
Hospitality: long hours, little upward mobility, potentially dangerous, often terrible management, difficult clientele
So, when looking at a job market that has a shortage, people are no longer having to take these jobs due to failing to secure ones with better work descriptions, and they haven’t been prioritizing these for a long time.
The biggest reason is that people understand the risks involved with these jobs now, especially as a lifer. And they’re no longer giving lifer offers.
If you want people to flock or prioritize these jobs you offer more money. This is a negotiation between the general public and the job opportunities. The people with jobs to fill need to be competitive with all the other prospects a potential worker is considering.
If an IT firm that requires little to no experience is offering $15 an hour to start, those jobs need to be at $30. If that’s still not enough? Well the general public balked at the offer. $40. Keep going until people come back.
It doesn’t matter if there aren’t enough people to fill all these jobs and all the other ones, you need to beat them with competitive packages to get them to come. Then offer pensions to get them to stay.
It’s a negotiation and they’re losing and throwing a pity party then saying the government needs to bring in immigrants.
I’m not against the last point. Not in the slightest. What I’m against is treating immigrants as if they’re less than anyone else in the country. As if they’re brought in to do all the shit the people don’t find appealing.
They should be brought in as equals.
I wish countries would focus on increasing their native birthrates (because that’s a sign of deeper underlying problems in a society) rather than use immigration as a band-aid to fix labor shortage issues.
Why? If people want to be child free, let them. If people want to move to my country, let them
I wasn’t implying the government should force people to have kids. I meant improve conditions that makes it easier for families to raise kids.
How would you achieve that? And does it really matter if it’s “natives”?
The method would include making raising children as close to a financially neutral option as possible. That includes not punishing parents for taking off time from work, and making sure business does not hold that time against parents when making decisions about promotions and other advancement.
The reason that this focuses on the ‘native’ population is that the idea is to address the population change without relying on immigration. If the population already in the country is self sustaining, then any benefits of immigration will be on top of a stable system instead of being a necessary component that deincentivises helping other countries that are common sources of immigration. Why help a neighbor if their situation is the reason that they immigrate to your country to prop up your economy?
I see what you mean, if you made housing more affordable for instance more people would be financially able to have kids. But my (completely non evidence based) assumption is that people in Europe (eg) aren’t not having kids for this type of reason. I don’t even know if I’d do it if you gave me a whole salary for it.
Honestly I don’t see your point about immigration so much. It’s not realistic that a country would get so much in aid (especially from a single country) that people won’t want to emigrate to somewhere else. People want to have a better life, and they will still want that whether or not there is some international aid coming in. And it would be pretty fucking heartless to not give necessary aid so you drive people out of their home country and into yours. I don’t think politicians are saints but that would be a special type of evil.
The alternative, imo, respects everybody’s wishes. It’s up to you if you have kids, and then just don’t turn away people who want to work in your country, contribute to society and prop up the birth rate a little. Seems like a win win.
On the other hand, does the world really need more people to support? Is it not better to let people move to where they are needed instead?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Amy Pope, the first woman to head the International Organization for Migration, sought to play up the economic benefits of migration for rich nations with aging populations and declining workforces — in the face of “build-the-wall” rhetoric in the United States to block migrants from Latin America and right-wing movements in Europe that want to keep foreigners out.
She said the evidence was “fairly overwhelming” that migration benefits economies by filling jobs, powering innovation or “fueling the renovation or revitalization of aging communities.”
Governments who open up to migration often do so at their political peril: The Biden administration — which strongly supported Pope’s candidacy — recently gave work permits to nearly 500,000 Venezuelans, whose home country has been in economic and political turmoil in recent years to help get them to work, pay taxes and stop being a burden on public finances.
But critics insist such policies are likely to encourage migrants to flock to the United States, and say they take manual and blue-collar jobs and put downward pressure on wages.
“The difference today is that 30 of the biggest economies have experienced very significant labor shortages — and we are seeing it everywhere,” she said, adding that agriculture, construction, health care and hospitality were among the sectors affected.
Pope said her first trip abroad in the job will be to East Africa, where drought and the impacts of climate change have driven many to flee.
The original article contains 562 words, the summary contains 238 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Immigration has a massive net gain for countries. It’s the racists who don’t like them.
Immigration is a massive net gain for companies. It’s a massive net loss for workers wages as demand lowers, leading to entire industries of exploitation like agricultural labor.
That is not the fault of immigration, and immigration should be encouraged. They’re no different then the people born there.
Your right it’s not the fault of immigration, but until we solve capitalism we shouldn’t be promoting it.
No you’re just being outright racist. If you think we should stop immigration because of worker exploitation then maybe also concern yourself with the workers at home being exploited as well.
Calling opposition to immigration racist is as dishonest as calling opposition to Israel antisemitic.
Not to mention the biggest groups of immigrants here are the British.
And that’s exactly what I’m doing. I saw the worker power and wage growth that was starting to happen by the end of lockdowns before the world “had” to suddenly and rapidly reopen because companies were hurting for cheap labour.
Here’s your “pro-worker” immigration take:
